My Election Projection--From October, 2006

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Nov 01, 2008 at 15:30

Now, I didn't write specifically about 2008.  Nostrodamus I am not.  But I wrote about 2006 in terms of realigning elections, and I said that what was an overlooked key to them was two consecutive wave elections in the House.  Well, it's pretty obvious what that means.  We're about to say "hello" to number 2.

Here's a chart from my October 20, 2006 post, "What A Dem Landslide Could Mean", with a bit of explanatory text:

The chart below shows the House share controlled by Democrats (top, blue line) and the percent change in share (bottom, red line), regardless of whether its a gain or loss. The yellow lines mark the three realigning elections-two definite (1896 and 1932), one questionable, at best (1968). The dotted purple lines mark the congressional elections of 1974 and 1994:

As you can see, the volatility of House elections has declined significantly in the last few decades.  Not shown on this chart is what happened in 2006--another wave election, smaller than 1994, in fact, a little bit smaller than 1980.  But, of course, it started from a place of greater strength than GOP was before 1994.  So being poised for a somewhat similar wave election this Tuesday, we really are set up for the first true realigning election since 1932.  That's what I predicted two years ago, and I'm sticking with it.

More on what it means--and maybe what's ahead--on the flip.

My underlying argument is that the biggest, unrecognized gap in American politics is between extremist movement conservatives and ordinary conservative voters, and that compared to this, ordinary liberals and conservatives have a good deal in common.  It's the reigning narrative that hides this, and that needs to challenged and overcome.  Here's what I said about that at the time:

It is the movement conservative narrative that construes politics in terms of liberal/conservative polarization, and obscures the degree of overlap between liberals and conservatives by demonizing liberals. The realigning potential of this election consists in part of the fragmenting [the] grasp of the ultra-conservative narrative.

Explaining the nature of that potential is the purpose of this post.

I will do this in three parts: (1) De-mythologizing liberal/conservative polarization. (2) Highlighting the conservative/ultra-conservative split. (3) Discussing the potential for narrative reconfiguration.

Skipping through most of the post, here's what I say about #3:

(3) The potential for narrative reconfiguration.

To date, the most comprehensive, up-to-date work dealing with conservatives narratives comes from cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Lakoff's work centers on cognitive metaphors, and the more general phenomena of cognitive and linguistic frames. These are not narratives per se, but they are the underpinnings of narrative. Furthermore, Lakoff's own work is not primarily directed in a way to help us work on opening up the conservative/ultra-conservative gap. It illuminates the differences between liberal and conservative worldviews-and even, more subtly to the differences between what he calls "ideological conservatives" and "pragmatic conservatives." But even this last distinction is not the one I'm aiming for. It's not what isolates a mere 1% or so of the population.

The effective core of conservatism is identity politics. It's what binds ordinary conservatives with reactionary ultra-conservatives. Mostly, it's about race, religion and ethnicity, depending on these to over-ride class. But opposition to unions is also part of the mix. Free and Cantril found a striking correlation between operational conservatism and opposition to power-sharing with outgroups:

This opposition to organized political power is easily translated into everyday language: "They're okay, as long as they know their place." Although the nature and degree of such exclusionary attitudes has certainly altered over time, the GOP's reliance on anti-gay initiatives and hysteria about illegal immigration are clear reminders that the basic logic remains firmly in place.

And, of course, we've seen a whole carnival freak show of GOP boogeymen fantasies trotted out this time to try to smear Obama.  Nothing new under the sun.

But here's something important, about the differece in how liberals and conservatives approach challenging problems, and starting with the thread of different approaches to the immigration issue, I move on to the question of how to frame an open-ended identity politics of inclusion--which, I think, is a good summary of what's been key to Obama's success:

Moreover, the example of illegal immigration shows that there can even be a rational foundation for such fears. Illegal immigration is a problem-it's just that it's part of a whole complex of problems tied to neo-liberal "free trade" economics that conservatives have no intention of examining, much less challenging. It's much easier to blame the victims with the darkest skin color. This is the essence of the liberal/conservative split: liberals engage in systematic analysis, seeking out complex patterns of cause and effect, while conservatives are quick to place blame on entire groups of individuals who in reality have very limited power or choice to do things differently, given the systemic forces they face.

Writ large, the problem that liberalism faces is just this: how to promote policies that change the systemic forces people face, when conservatives keep insisting that the problem is the people themselves. The answer, of course, is that conservative rhetoric only goes so far. Despite the hold it has, only the hardcore ultraconservatives steadfastly refuse to embrace liberal policies that work. Furthermore, new such policies can be introduced, but they need to be framed in the right sort of rhetoric.

Ironically, the best example of this is recent years is probably Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, with its rhetoric of "putting people first," and standing up for those who "work hard and play by the rules." Clinton's campaign rhetoric was pitch perfect-ironically, since his GOP-lite governance did not deliver what it promised. Yet, the answers are there, if we combine that sort of rhetoric with policies that actually deliver what Clinton promised.

One key aspect of Clinton's rhetoric deserves special note-his talk about people who "work hard and play by the rules." This is a formulation for a broadly inclusive counter-identity to set against conservative identity politics. It says nothing about who people are, in terms of race, religion, skin-color, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. It defines them by shared values-not values talk, but actual, real-life, day-to-day values. And this, of course, is what the promise of America has always been about. This is what liberals-and Democrats of all stripes-ought to be talking about every day. It's what underlies everything we want to do, which is why we should bring it up every time we talk about doing anything.

This is hardly a panacea, but it is a starting point, a foundation. Narratives of inclusion, based on shared aspirations are an antidote to narratives of exclusion. And a Democratic House-even if it stands alone-can be a perfect place to start launching such narratives, via legislation such as increasing the minimum wage, empowering bulk purchases of prescription drugs in Medicare Part D, increased spending on veterans' health care, etc. Above all, the House can become a place for holding hearings and staging debates-both about the widespread and systemic scandals and failures of Republican rule, and about what can be done to repair the damage done. and replace the policies that caused it.

Well, of course, the House as a whole did a terrible job of living up to its promise, even if some members, such as Henry Waxman, did a great deal of exemplary work.  But, on the plus side, Barack Obama did articulate a narrative of aspirational, inclusive identity.  And now we'll have another chance to get Congress back on the track it should have been on the last two years.

So I don't know that much about the smaller stuff--and I'm not pretending the small stuff isn't important.  One damn hanging chad is important.  Getting 60 Senate seats is important, rather than 57 or 58... even if Obama can "work with" a couple of Republicans here and there.  He shouldn't have to be doing that.  But what I mean by small stuff is simply this:  If we have the vision and the narrative right, then everything else can follow from that.  But if we don't, then everything will be a struggle.  Including those last couple of senators.  And it won't even matter if they're Republicans or Democrats.  Because if you don't have the vision and the narrative right, then Mary Landrieu and Max Baucus and Ben Nelson can be just as hard for us as any Republican we might hope to pick up.

But with all that by way of caveat, okay.  Here goes:  I say we make 60 in the Senate without Lieberman: Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Alaska, Minnesota, Kentucky and Georgia. I say it not coming from my head, but from my heart--with the proviso that my head had a chance to veto it, and did not.  Ditto the House: we pick up 33 seats.  And Obama wins all the Kerry states plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Indiana.

My heart would like to add Montana, Arizona and Goergia, but my head has to veto something and so it vetoes those.

I really hope my head is wrong.